ships in the night
by lydiamartins
Summary: "Daniel Humphrey," Blair Waldorf murmurs dryly, traipsing into the Brooklyn studio as though she owns the place; if she doesn't, she could. "I should have known that Serena Van Der Woodsen's version of a charity . . . was actually a charity case." -— danblair, slight serenadan, for ali!


**i got this idea from a gg quote "i've always wanted a portrait commissioned from you" and a tumblr challenge, c:**

**ships in the night**  
danblair

.

"Do I know you?" She asks in a condescending tone, lowering her ridiculously overpriced sunglasses; even though Blair's standing two steps about him on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Arts, he still dwarfs her petite frame.

"I'm Daniel Humphrey? I've been in your grade, for what, ten years now?"

"Daniel Humphrey," she smiles, sweetly. "I know all about you; of course, I remember you, silly!"

He takes a gulp and wonders how long it will take for Blair Waldorf to show her superior intellect and horribly embarrass him in front of the entire assembled populace of St. Jude's School for Boys and Constance Billiard's School for Girls, not that it hasn't been done before (actually, if Dan thinks about it, it's happened countless times before) but instead, she lays a somewhat possessive grasp on his wrist, French manicured nails digging into his skin and yanks him up the staircase away from the prying eyes, still maintaining her fawning façade. "You're Jenny Humphrey's older brother, right?"

"Uh, yeah. But look, uh, I have to get to class now, since I have this presentation, and if I'm late, I won't be able to get a recommendation from my writing teacher, so if you don't mind," he almost begs, making a move to the entrance of St. Jude's; Blair rolls her eyes, and moves an arm to stop him and he doesn't even try to resist, reluctantly stepping back down two steps.

"Good, then. I'm glad we're on the same terms; then, as you're very well aware of, Jenny's birthday is coming up in a few weeks—"

"Her birthday is on June twenty-first. It's the middle of May."

"You know what I mean," she says, with a casual wave of her hand. "It's her three-month anniversary since entering the Upper East Side's élite, and I thought that it would be such a great idea to throw her a surprise party! You only come into this because you're the only one that Jenny still trusts, and I'm not even sure why she trusts you—"

"I'm her brother."

"Aaron Rose is my brother. It doesn't mean that I trust him. Anyways, I'll give Nate the details about the party, and he'll send them to you, and all of you have to do is bring Jenny into the party on time, not fashionably late, but actually on time, okay?"

"Uh, I actually can't do that. You see, I have this poetry reading at the café downtown."

"I haven't even told you when the party is. Unless you have a poetry reading at the café downtown, which is sort of lame. Actually, extremely."

"You see, I can't go to an Upper East Side event. I just can't. Okay? I'm sorry, but you're going to have to find somebody else that Jenny trusts."

Blair takes a deep breath, and rolls her eyes once more, thinking that she's probably overusing those muscles for a reason as simple as this one, and walks backwards, high heels clicking on the steps. "You know, Serena's going to be there," she offers, tantalizingly. "Ciao!"

.

"Daniel Humphrey, at an Upper East Side party. Who would have thought?" Blair stands in front of him, one hand crossed around her slender waist, the other holding a small martini glass filled with some sort of murky looking liquid, as opposed to the typical red cup parties that were common of the Brooklyn scene, but then again, the Upper East Side was as different as Brooklyn as two opposites could be.

"You know, I just couldn't resist the free food invitation, and plus, there's this great band playing later tonight, and Jenny was just so over excited about this event that I couldn't let Dad take her—"

"Please. Everybody here, including me, knows the real reason you're here. Serena's right behind of us, if you were wondering," she murmurs, taking a gulp of the liquid, almost as if to calm down her nerves, and turns her head slightly to look at the tall blonde who talks in a vivacious way to her date, gleaming smile wide, happiness in an almost contagious fashion.

"I didn't come here for Serena," Dan lies and he catches himself avoiding eye contact, and thinks that it's almost as worse as the first time he said it.

"You're a terrible liar," she mutters, walking in the opposite direction before throwing an adoring glance at one of the new incoming members who stride through the gilded doors.

"Dan, what are you doing here?" He hears the familiar voice of Serena Van Der Woodsen approaching behind him, and turns around with a glowing smile before seeing the person of interest who escorts her, an ever so smug grin on his face. "Have you met Carter? He was just telling me about all of his positively wonderful trips in Europe."

Dan takes a deep breath — if Blair Waldorf is everything that he hates about the UES, distilled into one somewhat evil girl, then Carter Baizen is a thousand times worse; he's been around the Upper East Side long enough to catch rumors of the gossip of Baizen, of how he shaped his own future when his parents took away his trust fund, of how he traveled around the world and amassed a considerable fortune, then back to his homeland as something akin to an eligible bachelor at the age of nineteen. Carter raises an eyebrow, "Daniel Humphrey, if I'm correct?

"Uh, that would be me. Y'know, I think I just heard Jenny calling me, so if you don't mind, I think I'm going to go, okay, uh, bye. See you guys around," Dan mumbles awkwardly, fleeing in the other direction, never stopping to look back.

.

When Dan Humphrey had received a prestigious internship with Jeremiah Harris in the midst of New York City, he had imagined luxurious hours of walking in Central Park, amassing considerable amounts of ideas and writing them down in the ambiance of balmy summer heat, maybe in the middle of a writing café, fingers a flying frenzy across a typewriter. He had most certainly not imagined spending summer break getting coffee orders for the writing staff of Mr. Harris's office, hand delivering papers to the New Yorker, and most importantly, making sure that his boss stayed sober until noon. Dan had even worn a new cardigan which itched around the corner of his neck in the summer heat, in hopes of interning at the prestigious New Yorker.

"Choose a difficult subject to paint, and capture their inner essence, their flaws, something beneath the surface, and then maybe I'llcowled consider writing a Letter of Recommendation for you to Yale," Jeremiah Harris instructs; he's something of a figure of respect in the city, what with the scraggly beard that runs down a few inches and his amazing writing pieces, which is why Dan had chosen him in the first place, but he had soon learned that just because somebody was an amazing writer, it didn't mean that they were anything close to an amazing person.

"I'm sorry, I thought that the uh, summer internship was what was getting me the Letter of Recommendation?" Dan asks, scratching the back of his head in a matter akin to nervousness — a fly lands on his latest manuscript, which has amassed to almost two paragraphs, which he quickly flicks off; he tries, in vain, to keep his attention focused on Jeremiah Harris who looks at him in a disapproving way.

"You've been consistently late to work, never order the correct amount of coffees for the staff, and most importantly, haven't written a single word since the beginning of your summer break. This is your last chance, Mr. Humphrey. Do you know where to start?"

"Well, I have a friend — her name's Serena, and after all, she was the one who got me the connections to work with Charlie's story—"

"We're all very well aware that 'Charlie' was an anonymous name for Charles Bartholomew Bass, so there's no point in even hiding it anymore. The painting will be due in a few months, and please, don't disappoint me. I would hate to decline writing a recommendation." Jeremiah Harris stands up, and tips the edge of his Abraham Lincoln styled hat in a _good day_ way, and walks towards the exit.

"A few months? And uh, no offense sir, but what does writing have to do with painting?" Absolutely nothing, he thinks to himself.

The swish of a door closing answers.

"Shit."

.

"Blair, you have to do this for me," Serena begs.

The two of them are sitting in a Parisian café; Blair dons a maroon-colored beret and periodically checks her cell phone for Gossip Girl blasts upon the location of Chuck, who seems to have disappeared off the face of the planet, before placing it down and taking a sip of the ice-cold lemonade and biting into a strawberry-flavored macaroon. "I don't even understand what this is about, Serena. What do you need me to do — and now, after the stunt that you pulled off with Yale, I'm not sure if I owe you anything," she announces, feeling a bit of regret for her harsh words, but they're the truth.

"But you'll do this for me, right? Please, Blair! You're my best friend. I don't have anybody else to turn to," Serena begs, motioning with shaking hands and a loud, booming voice which echoes across the cavernous expanse, causing several people to turn around and look at the noisy American intruders; in response, Blair sets down her drink, and sighs reluctantly.

"Alright, alright. What is it this time?" It wasn't as though this was the first time that Serena had needed Blair's help for some disastrous calamity. "As long as it's nothing to do with high stakes gambling games, I'm fine with it."

"I have an uh, friend who needs somebody to help him for charity work," she mentions, almost shyly, in a vague way that causes Blair to scrunch her eyebrows, wrinkles forming.

"And how do I fit into this situation?" Blair demands, checking her phone once more, and setting it down on the table just as quickly as she had picked it up with the resounding 0 new messages that makes her want to smash her cellphone against the ground, just for a moment.

"Well, my friend got advertised in Gossip Girl's weekly reports and still nobody volunteered, so I thought that you could just do me this favor for a few hours and let him paint you?" If somebody has to advertise themselves in Gossip Girl, and still nobody volunteers, then they have to be either an amateur, or desperate. Or maybe they're both.

"You want me to give up a few days of summer vacation in Paris to help somebody I don't even know? Who is this person, anyway?"

.

"Daniel Humphrey," Blair Waldorf murmurs dryly, traipsing into the art studio as though she owns the place; if she doesn't, she could. "I should have known that Serena Van Der Woodsen's version of a charity . . . was actually a charity case. What do I owe the pleasure of this occasion to?" She takes a moment to look for the cleanest sitting spot and reluctantly drapes her bag upon an empty chair in the middle, sitting down with legs daintily crossed by the ankles.

"Serena called me a charity case? I seriously doubt that. I mean, I might not be the richest guy at St. Jude's, but my family is still better off than most," Dan replies back, coming out from behind the counter, paintbrush awkwardly held in one hand with a bucket of paint — the type of paint that suburban people used to paint their own walls — in the other. There's a new definition for amateur, Blair thinks to herself.

"Whatever. No, she said something about a charity involved with this, and maybe she was referring to the fact that your so-called painting was for a charity, but now, I obviously see that she was referring to you. Your fashion style needs some serious help," Blair comments, giving Humphrey a quick one-over and immediately deciding that for starters, his tie should be thrown in the garbage can, and his watch which dons a picture of a person who might have been his grandmother should have been buried with her.

"I'm not Chuck Bass, Blair; I don't care about my fashion style." She flinches at the name, and immediately hardens before loosening her exterior and trying to make the most out of the dreadful experience that this was bound to be.

"You should. Anyway, let's just get this finished with so I can go back to Paris!" Blair announces, pursing her lips together, French-manicured fingers intertwined with one another.

"You came here from Paris, just for this?" Dan questions, raising an eyebrow as though it wouldn't be completely possible to jet over to New York City and then back to Paris at least a few times a day, but judging by the impressive height that his eyebrows have reached on his face, Blair assumes otherwise.

"Obviously not. I'm visiting some friends in the city, and then jetting back for the rest of the summer," she says in a matter-of-fact tone.

"You know that this whole process will probably take over two, maybe three months, right?"

"How bad exactly are you?" Blair takes a deep breath and hopes that he's not as bad as she knows he will be — throughout high school, she's known all the members of Constance Billiard's School for Girls and the boys from St. Jude's who had some sort of redeeming artistic qualities (after all, somebody needed to create posters for her Class President campaign) and Dan Humphrey had not been among the assembled students. Blair would have remembered a bad haircut like his.

"Taking more time doesn't mean that I suck at this. Productivity is being able to do things—

"—that you were never able to do before. I know, I know. Kafka," she answers, tilting her head from side to side, wondering whether this painting would be released at a gala downtown; Blair couldn't bear the amount of bad press that this was going to do to the Eleanor Waldorf fashion business.

"Sophomore Gifted English?" He asks, slightly impressed.

"AP Lit," she replies.

"You're not a junior, though."

"My mother has connections."

"That's nice." Silence fills in the gaps of meaningless conversations, drafting upon the studio like a dispassionate wave of summer heat, settling in as a harbinger of worse to come.

.

"So, are we going to set up a time for next week?" Dan asks at the end of the two-hour long session; the natural humidity of summer along with the fact that Rufus refused to pay air-conditioning bills unless his son would actually explain why in the world Jenny Humphrey was living with her mother, and plus, the air-conditioning bills weren't something that was suited for a one paycheck family.

"One minute, let me check my schedule; I have a three o'clock on Friday for two hours, and a 5:30 next Tuesday — either of those times will work for me, so pick one, if you'd like," Blair says in a matter-of-fact tone, chin tilted slightly upwards; she turns the page on her handheld calendar, chocolate eyes nimbly scanning the pages for a blank space among the minuscule handwriting notes, and Blair looks up at him, expectantly.

"Yeah, Blair, here's the thing — I can't do either of those," he says, setting down the paintbrush and wondering whether a rough sketch (and when I mean rough, I mean a horribly done rough sketch) would be enough to impress Jeremiah Harris and decides against it, wondering whether the best possible way to learn how to do this would be to bribe an actual professional artist, or at least anybody who actually knew how to paint a portrait that didn't look like a first grader had drawn in. Abstract art, Dan thinks to himself, abstract art isn't detailed. I'll do an abstract representation.

"3:00 on Friday, 5:30 next Tuesday; or, if you'd like, we can just use both times so that this project is done as quickly as possible," Blair continues, interrupting his line of thought.

"Blair, I'm the artist, so I'm going to be the one who has to pick the times; and, it's not like this process can be over in a week, and I've already told you that. So, I need to look in my schedule for a correct time, and then I can match it with yours, okay?"

"Take your time, but you need to pick one."

"Are you even listening to me?" Dan throws his hands up in the air with obvious frustration; Blair doesn't even bother to look up from her calendar which looks remarkably like a school assignment notebook what with the different columns and pastel-colored dates indicating each month, and continues writing miniature notes on the sides of pages, completely oblivious to his annoyance.

"Take your time, but quickly enough," she mutters, finally turning her head.

"Have you even been listening to me? I can't do either of those times, I'm sorry, but I can't, so you're just going to have to cancel your shopping trips and fancy lunches, okay?"

"I'll see you at 3:00 on Friday," Blair says, in a voice with something akin to relief in her voice, and exits out of the studio quickly, Prada bag draped around her shoulders, and the smell of jasmine and strawberry resides in the air for a while, cloaked with the summer heat, and Dan resists the urge to call after her and tell her that she can't always get her way, but —

Then, she's out of the door before Dan can even begin yelling.

.

She looks surprisingly different with just a pinch of foundation to cover a scar on her nose, and the slightest turn up of her chin to cover up a double chin that doesn't even exist; her fingernails are chipped and Blair carries an armful of the most obscure literature in one hand, handwritten music scores in the other. She takes a deep breath, decides not to shield her face, and walks down the street. "Humphrey," she acknowledges.

"What in the world are you doing here?" Dan comments, tilting down his ridiculously large straw sunhat, and just from a look into Blair's withering glare, knows that there's something wrong with his summer look. "I mean, no offense, but Blair Waldorf doesn't shop in Brooklyn, unless you're not who I think you are, uh, you know what, never mind, but," he rambles, on and on, trying to end his meaningless words.

"Buying sheet music," she simply answers, ducking her head as somebody familiar passes by on the sidewalk, as though Blair can't be seen in Brooklyn or in the company of Dan Humphrey, and more likely than not, both.

"From the Upper West Side?" Dan asks again, still a little confused, shocked, and surprised about finding the Upper East Side princess buying sheet music from a small shop, nestled in between the café that Vanessa works at and an organic fruit shop. "I mean, don't you have some sort of fancy catalog from abroad that you can buy sheet music from?"

"You talk as though we're still in high school," Blair replies, as though she's outgrown the phase wherein high school is all about forming cliques and being the most popular girl at school, where other people were hurt or used, and more likely than not, both, in order for you to have all your dreams come true, and it's probably more of a façade, Dan thinks, a façade of maturity.

"We are still in high school. We're actually going to eleventh grade, next year, if you've bothered to remember."

Blair rolls her eyes. "I'll see you around, Humphrey," she announces in a way that's almost mysterious and dangerous at the same time, an alluring combination, pushing past him and continuing down the street, a bounce in her step.

.

In total, Blair's come over to the studio about six times so far in two months, and the two of them usually get into a habit of Blair sitting, sometimes texting, sometimes eating a low-calorie fruit yogurt, Dan painting across from her, filling his mouth occasionally with much more substantial food; sometimes, they'll talk, but mostly there's a comfortable amount of silence, which is always better. "So, why did you go to Paris?" Dan mentions, dipping his paintbrush into a palette of colors — he'd signed up for this online course which had taught him that no, you don't paint a portrait from paint buckets.

"Do we need to talk?" Blair mutters, rubbing the sleep away from her eyes; she doesn't try to be her best personality when she's around Dan, and he thinks that that's probably for the best, because he's sort of tired of being on the Upper East Side when more often than not, people fake their happiness, fake their respect for one another, so that they can climb the never-ending social ladder, which inevitably turns around like a ferris wheel.

"Uh, actually, the concept of the painting is for me to get to understand you better." Because right now, you're pretty much that shallow girl on the surface that you always have been, he thinks to himself. "And you're not doing a good job of opening up."

"Well, sue me for not telling my entire life story to a complete stranger."

"Well, we have gone to school together since kindergarten—" Even though St. Jude's and Constance Billiard School's for Girls were two distinctively separated single gender schools, he had seen her occasionally in the Courtyard, at a few of the combined co-ed assemblies, most often the graduation ones when they were younger, and sitting on the steps, Serena on her left side, minions a few steps below, Jenny (minion-in-training) fetching smoothies for the girls.

"Same difference. Why do you want to know, anyway?"

"You're interesting," he comments, his paintbrush moving smoothly across the canvas, acrylic colors blending together before being scrapped entirely; nothing about Blair Waldorf is simple, Dan thinks. Then again, nothing about this project is simple, either.

There's a moment of silence, and then an entirely expected, "Well, I wish I could say the same about you."

.

It's the tenth time that Blair's been over to the studio, not that Dan's been counting (but Rufus has), and they've already gotten into the habit of exchanging obscure literature with one another, sometimes comparing movies, but most certainly, of course, they're not even close to being friends. "You should come over to dinner sometime," he invites, casually.

Blair flinches, and immediately withdraws, sitting upright in the white chair that sticks out from the rest of the colorful-filled studio wherein Dan and the rest of the Humphrey family had made themselves at home. "I'm sorry, are we friends? And it's not like I have anything better to do, you know, like go to my mother's fashion show tonight or maybe stop by Serena's new place—"

"So, it's settled then. How about seven?"

And this time, she's the one who looks exasperated and fixes him with a Medusa-esque, withering glare.

.

"Welcome to the glorious Humphrey abode," Dan announces, remembering vaguely when he had uttered those same words in a sarcastic demeanor to Jenny all those years earlier, back when the Humphrey family was perfectly intact, and when Jenny used to tell him everything about her day — about all the mean, bitchy girls who stomped all over her, the newest fashion trends, the concerts, the choir assemblies — instead of hiding behind a fake display of innocence, which had soon transformed into the thirst for power, a sort of lesser-Blair.

"It's uh, nice?" Blair questions, glancing around the place, as though one second would be all it took for her to figure out whether the place was one, in dire need of a serious makeover that even a trust fund from Lillian Van Der Woodsen could fix, two, okay if you were a hobo, or three, suitable if you were living the life of a middle-class person.

"You can tell me the truth, you know. I can bear the criticism," Dan says, setting down his summer raincoat upon the couch; Blair awkwardly places hers on the empty coat rack, the one that barely anybody ever even uses at the Humphrey household, and for once, he thinks that he's not the one who feels out of place in a completely different environment than the one he grew up in.

"Your tie's a little crooked and you've applied cologne on way too heavily, and I'm not even sure why you're wearing cologne in the first place, and there's a scar on the back of your ear that you could easily cover up with foundation ―" she launches off into a fashion criticism rant, and Dan thinks that there's a reason why he coined the term _'fashion dictator with taste' _for Blair Waldorf.

"I'm a guy," is all he can manage to say back to something as ridiculous as that. "And I was talking about my house."

"It's bucolic," Blair says, trying to think of euphemisms from the SAT vocabulary packet that Dorota had been quizzing her a few weeks ago; at least bucolic didn't have a negative connotation and was somewhat truthful. Then again, if she was going for the complete truth, Blair would have said that it looked like a dump, but she was somewhat nicer than that.

"You don't need to pretend to be nice," Dan tells her, and the two walk into what Blair assumes is the dining room; a grandfather clock rests in the corner, a tranquil _tick-tock _transforming into an almost reassuring sound with its repetitive nature.

Blair self-consciously straightens her three-hundred dollar dress; Alison and Rufus sit across the dinner table and smile at each other in a loving, respectful way that Blair's own parents have never looked at each other. Jenny sits with an exuberant smile, her long blonde hair reaching down to mid-back, a simple flowery dress donned. "I need to go to the bathroom," she announces, walking in the opposite direction, fumbling for something akin to a bathroom, anything, because she can't take how happy everybody else is. How perfect everybody else's families are.

"I have issues too, you know," Dan says, sitting down beside her; he doesn't even try to pull a joke.

"Like what, Humphrey? Your infatuation with Serena? Your problems with your parents - taking care of your little sister? My dad left my mother and came out of the closet and moved to Paris, out of all places; my mother won't stop criticizing me, and I'll never be good enough for her. The guys that I fall in love with always fall in love with somebody else, but it's always my fault. Everybody loves my best friend more than they love me, even though I've always tried so much harder than her."

"Do you need a Kleenex?" She takes one of them, laughing a little; her façade drops upon once more, and Blair straightens her three-thousand dollar dress and stands up, bottling up her emotions again. "You know, it's not good to bottle up your emotions like that," Dan notes.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Whatever you say." And they're back to square one — _pretending._

.

"So, uh, who are you taking to this stupid charity thing, anyways?" It's the thirteenth time, and the last; he's putting on the finishing touches on the painting, and quite honestly, Dan doesn't think that Blair needed to even come today, but the company's nice and painting alone gets a little lonesome from time to time, and if nothing else, she keeps him on track. There's no time to go order Chinese food or to mope about Serena, and that might be for the best, Dan thinks.

"It was a tough choice, but I decided to opt with Chuck Bass," Blair says, quietly.

There's a moment of silence, and she looks expectantly at Dan's dumbstruck face who quickly, yet naturally awkwardly, recovers without completely making a fool out of himself. "You're going with Chuck Bass?"

"Yes, I thought that we'd already established that. Look, if you've finished with the portrait, I have somewhere to be, places to go, minions to order around—" Blair pauses, taking a deep breath. There's stillness in the air between them, and she thinks that this situation is probably sufficiently awkward, and picks up her crimson red Prada bag, slinging it across her shoulders, shopping bags dangling on the wrists of both hands, barely being lifted up.

"You're going with Chuck Bass," Dan echoes, dumbstruck.

"Seriously, how slow are you? I'm going with Chuck Bass."

"No offense, but aren't you guys, y'know, a bit, uh, different?" Dan questions, scratching the back of his head; he tosses over a rough draft of the painting, and she raises an eyebrow, throwing it into the trashcan with a look of pity and discouragement clear on her carefully put together features.

"How so?" He's a villain, she's a villain, same difference.

"Well, you're the Queen Bee of the Upper East Side, and he's pretty much the owner of the Playboy mansion." Blair pretends to be offended, because she'd like to think that both have changed, both of them had made each other better (because that's the only point of a relationship, really, on the Upper East Side, or for monetary gold-digger reasons), but perhaps, it's just a lie that she tells herself at night so that she can sleep.

"He's changed, and so have I. I don't want a Prince Charming anymore; that's why I dumped Nate last weekend. It just wasn't working out between us, and to be honest—" It wasn't as though she didn't want a Prince Charming; Blair thinks that she's changed over time, and that maybe it's not for the best for her to keep pretending to be the princess of the Upper East Side when she's more suited for the role of a villain, and the bad girl never ends up with the good guy — it's just not the way that stories go.

"Nate's the one who dumped you," Dan comments, and Blair rolls her eyes, remembering the somewhat close friendship that had formed between Dan Humphrey and Nate Archibald over the years, such that Dan was a sort of person from a non-privileged world, a type of world that Nate would have liked to have grown up in, without society's constant pressures.

"Shut up. Anyway, you're going with Serena, right?"

"Yep. If she ever gets around to asking me and doesn't end up going with Carter Baizen instead to please her grandmother, who by the way, I'm pretty sure does not have cancer; Upper East Side people keep on telling that they have cancer, but really, I'm pretty sure that it's just for the pity looks. I mean, you don't just get cancer, suddenly, right?"

Blair rolls her eyes, "Whatever you say, Humphrey. Anyway, she's the 'it girl' of the Upper East Side, and you're well, you." _They're pretty much opposites, Dan and Serena, the type of opposites that most definitely do attract._

"Thank you for your ever so generous description of my personage, Blair."

"You're welcome."

.

He stares nervously at the painting in front of him, still covered, waiting for the 7:00 time to open it up to the criticizing public; Dan taps his foot impatiently upon the floor, pacing back and forth. People flock around the exhibition, some sitting down and sketching other opened paintings while most hover around the ones that are yet to be opened, delicate wine glasses held in their hands which do little to instigate otherwise droll conversation. Out of the corner of his eye, Dan can see the Waldorf entourage entering the premises, Blair standing behind Eleanor and who Dan assumed was the new step-father; Eleanor walks over, smiling and greets him like an old friend before whisking away to the center of the room. Dan raises an eyebrow and thinks that Eleanor is nothing like the dictator Blair had told him of and thinks that the niceties are something to do with her recently married status.

Blair stands before him, pink gauzy heels toe-tapping upon the glossy linoleum floors; she looks up at him with a guarded expression, eyebrows raised. "Well, I got your text; what emergency is it this time?"

"The painting, it's uh, tonight, and I don't think that it's ready yet. If I just had a few more hours to work on it—"

"Do you want me to steal the painting?"

"No. I was just saying that I was nervous and that—"

"Do you want me to hold your hand for emotional support?" She asks, her tone evidently sarcastic.

"No. I was just thinking that you would want to see the painting. Y'know, since it's you," Dan fumbles.

"I've already seen it." Every time Blair had entered the studio, a new rough draft had been pinned to the walls — there had been acrylic watercolors which blended together into, quite frankly, a jumble of dissonant shades; the black-and-white sketch with pencils no less lacked creativity and was more two-dimensional than anything else; the first draft, a quick outline of her facial features used with large slabs of paint, thick strokes and ink that bled through the canvas.

"Sketches, and rough drafts — not the real thing, though."

"Why would I want to see your painting?" Blair asks in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Because I took six months out of my schedule for an extra-credit assignment to paint you," Dan replies, as if it's obvious.

Blair draws out a sigh in response, placing her phone back into her gauzy white purse, and takes a breath, looking back at her mother and her step-father who laugh and clink glasses with the Vanderbilt's. "I'll see it, but just saying, I've had paintings of me commissioned since I was a baby. I've seen all there is to see; there'll be nothing different about yours."

"Thanks?" He questions, taking a step back.

"You're welcome."

.

"So, what did you think?" Dan walks up behind her, sweaty palms. He thinks that it's probably absurd that he cares more about what Blair Waldorf thinks of the painting than what his summer internship leader thinks of it, but everything about the Upper East Side is absurd and ridiculous, so this might as well fall into the pattern.

Blair stares up at the painting — it's the portrait of a little girl, but the subtle nuances of her hair, her chocolate eyes directly correlate to her own appearance; she looks something akin to beautiful in the portrait, and it's almost as though it's not her anymore — it looks like one of those photoshopped models on cover magazines, and it's disgusting and wonderful at the same time how there's basically nothing left of Blair Waldorf except the perfections; the flaws are what shape her personality, but they're there too; the girl stares at the sky, her glare withering, and her feet are slightly pointed inwards. "It's, uh, not that bad."

"Was that a compliment, Blair?" Dan asks, raising an eyebrow, almost surprised at her reaction.

"Don't get used to it, Humphrey."

.

The elderly man's face is marked with age spots and wrinkles, and unlike most people on the Upper East Side, Jeremiah Harris had decided that it wasn't for the best to opt for some sort of face-lift surgeries of the like; the age defined him and people around him acknowledged his presence with society's élite with dignified respect. He makes his way through the crowd to Dan Humphrey who stands on the sidelines, lapsed in comfortable silence with the girl next to him; Mr. Harris claps a hand on Dan's back and smiles, "So, is this the enigma of a girl who I've heard about?"

"Excuse me?" Blair flinches backward, and takes a quick glance over the time-ravaged writer who stands in front of her, salt-and-pepper shaded hair matching blood-flecked eyes, though his glinting eyes match a crooked smile; Mr. Harris pulls out a folder, rheumatic and contorted fingers searching for a grading paper, buried between misshapen sheets and barely sharpened stub pencils.

"Uh, this is Blair," Dan introduces. "Blair Waldorf, meet Jeremiah Harris; he's the one who commissioned me for this extra credit assignment."

"Extra credit? Mr. Humphrey, if you didn't complete this assignment, your reputation as a writer would have been ruined within moments. Anyway, I really hope that you've shown more than what's on the surface; I've yet to see the painting, though. Best of luck, to the both of you." His threadbare socks are seen between the edges of the too-short velvet dress pants and the polished, gleaming shoes, his movement almost lethargic.

"An enigma?" Blair asks, raising an eyebrow; she downs a small glass of wine delicately, sipping the liquid and almost cringing at the horrid taste before setting it down on the trays that the servers bring around, instead reaching for a glass of ice-cold water or any liquid that doesn't have the taste of strong scotch and bad memories.

"Uh, the exact assignment was to find a complicated person and understand them?" Dan rambles out, twisting his hands behind his back in an almost contorted fashion.

"How am I supposed to be complicated?"

"Are you kidding me?" Dan turns his head for a moment, and acknowledges the presence of his age-chiseled father who walks towards them through the mass of the assembled crowd in an almost casual manner, standing out from the rest of the people there with his sneaker-styled shoes and tuxedo as opposed to the gentleman gathered, all donning expensive three-piece suits, that probably aren't rentals.

"Do I look like I make a lot of jokes?"

"No; you're Blair Waldorf — you act as though you're the Queen of the Upper East Side, and everybody else is either a loyal, yet terrified minions, or peasants who you have the power to crush within your fingers. At the same time, you're not that bad when you're not pretending to be something that you're not."

There's a moment of silence, and she takes a sip of the ice-cold water, and thinks that it's almost refreshing for somebody to tell her the facts, "You're not too bad, yourself."

.

His summer internship leader, Jeremiah Harris, comes up behind Dan, and claps a hand on his back, an almost fatherly gesture despite that the man reeks of whiskey and is in desperate need of a shower — or three. "Well, Mr. Humphrey, I have to say, that you surprised me. Honestly, I thought that you were going to draw a picture of that girl you're infatuated with — Serena's her name, if I'm correct? — but this is a lot better."

Dan's eyes widens and he tries to hide his anger, and subtly motions to the aforementioned 'girl he's infatuated with' who stands right behind him, and Mr. Harris just raises a glass and walks away, as though nothing had happened. "Uh, he's a bit drunk,"

"Just a bit," Serena says, smiling. A tune of familiar music fills the cavernous room, and people walk onto the elaborately planned dance floor, others gazing around the white floors, paintings the only spot of color. "Hey, do you want to dance?"

"I'd love to."

.

"The three of us should go out for a movie sometime," Serena offers. The three of them are sitting in the courtyard between St. Jude's and Constance Billiard on one of the junior orientation days, indulging in the fresh air that New York City has to offer, back when it was just so simple to be happy and light, and all three of them can feel the pretense of the situation, but ignore it nonetheless. Blair dangles a spoon inside a cup of fruit yogurt, and disposes of the full cup — Serena gives her a glare in response, and passes over a grilled cheese sandwich and something akin to regret in her vivacious blue eyes.

"That's a great idea," Dan chimes in, happier than the situation calls for.

"If it's Serena's idea, of course it's a great idea," Blair mutters beneath her breath. "Anyway, I have some business-related worked to do for my mother, so I don't think that I have any spare time to waste on trivial matters."

"You were the one who said that you wanted to see Rosemary's Baby," Serena acknowledges; after all, there was some sort of limited edition version of the movie coming out, and it was either watching Roman Holiday for the millionth time again, or perhaps trying something new, and for once, Blair had opted for a movie that didn't include Audrey Hepburn, and Serena thought that it would be best if Blair started to stray away from her old habits, instead of falling back into what was familiar and safe, but not necessarily good.

"Yes, with my best friend. Not with Humphrey."

"I'm right here," Dan comments.

"I thought that the two of you were friends now. And, anyways, I already bought the tickets, so clear your schedules and I'll see the two of you at the theater at seven."

"Great," Blair mutters, and leaves, the grilled cheese sandwich untouched.

.

"Where's Serena?" Dan asks; Blair enters the foyer of the theater, unusually overdressed for just a movie with a bag of popcorn; nevertheless, Dan looks around the Upper East Side facility, where all the men are dressed in either fashionable tuxedos, usually a slimming black or a pastel putrid shade of green that seemed to be popular lately, and back down at his tattered jeans and plaid flannel shirt that his mom had bought for him for eighth grade graduation. In retrospect, it had looked better concealed by the blue-and-yellow robes.

"I thought she was coming with _you_," Blair replies, her tone on edge.

As if on cue, their phones consecutively chime and a Gossip Girl post flashes on the screen, reading S repeating her old mistakes — for the better, or for the worse? and displays a somewhat nauseating picture of Serena and Carter having a candlelight dinner. "Carter, again?" Dan asks, groaning, with the slightest bit of regret and melancholy in his otherwise unusually energetic voices.

"Well, she loves him."

"He's a douche, though. I thought that they ended it."

"She loves him — that's all that's important."

"Well, I still have the tickets, if you wanted to see the movie."

"There'll be the customary three seats apart, of course."

"Right."

"Okay."

"Okay."

.

Blair positions herself upon the mattress, back resting against an over-adequate number of fluffy pillows, her satin silk mask wrapped around her head like a headband, picking at the flaws and imperfections of her nails — she studies the way that they curve around the sides of the overheated computer, light violet nail polish, the color of a royalty no less, chipping near the edges, and small pieces of skin start peeling off the edges of her nail. Residual warmth remains in the palm of Blair's hands, and she studies her reflection on the black of the blank Mac screen; it's more aged, then anything else.

It's the reflection of somebody who's not a girl anymore, somebody lost between the struggle of keeping up with everybody and everything, and there's a reason why everybody thinks that Blair Waldorf isn't the Queen, anymore. She stands up and wipes the sleep from her eyes with a washcloth, tilting her head from side to side as she applies adequate layers of foundation and other make-up supplies until all of her flaws are concealed underneath a fake cover of her original self. It's still not enough, though. "Blair," her mother calls from across the hallway, and Blair resists the urge to hide underneath her pillows because another hour of criticizing over her personal appearance and how she's destroying her own future, isn't something that she's ready to deal with, at least for now. "Blair, darling, I know you're in there."

She takes a deep breath and displays a fake smile, opening the gilded doorknob to her bedroom, "Mother, it's good to see you. How was Paris?"

Her mother flinches in response, "You know that we don't talk about Paris." Because Paris was where her somewhat estranged father had left two years ago, and as much as Eleanor Waldorf tried to conceal it, some scars remained at the surface; Blair thinks that she'd rather be a child again, when her biggest worries were whether Nate Archibald would ask her to be his girlfriend, when her mother had been perfect. They had all been the perfect family. "Milan was . . . interesting. I brought back some clothes for you to try on, for the fashion shoot next week."

"I thought that Serena was doing the fashion shoot," Blair murmurs, slowly. Serena had always been the favorite, the one that Eleanor probably wished had been her daughter — perfect and happy, without even trying to be, but Blair had grown from that, and gradually accepted the fact that she would always be second-best, to her ex-boyfriend(s), to her mother.

Eleanor raises an eyebrow, "Well, I thought that you would like to do it."

"I'd love to, mother," she answers, obediently, trying to keep the ill-fitting exuberance out of her voice; after all, Blair had learned the hard way that having high hopes and expectations would only lead to great disappointments.

Blair's mother peers over her shoulder at the television screen which is easily concealed with the drapery of silk curtains hastily removed down and replaced with heavier material to shield out the ill-fitting light. "What are you watching?"

"Roman Holiday," Blair lies.

"Good girl. Now, remember to be on time — get some sleep, too. Your wrinkles are starting to show." And it's been sixteen years, but there's always this way that her mother looks at her, as though she expects something more, a better, more perfect, skinnier, prettier girl, like Blair will never be good enough, and after all this time, it still hurts.

.

"Chuck wasn't supposed to be that way—" Blair comes bursting through the door of the Brooklyn apartment on a Sunday afternoon, as if it's something of habit, and gives him a withering glare; she thinks that it's something of a desperate action, to seek out somebody like Dan Humphrey for help, but Serena's out of town with Carter Baizen, practically everybody in Columbia abhors the sight of her (jealousy, of course), and nearly anything might be better than wallowing in her own self-pity and misery with a box of bonbons and petit fours.

"I'm still confused about what's even happening, but you can catch me up to speed, if you want."

"He was supposed to be different; I thought that he might have changed — Serena told me that he could change, change his old habits because of his supposed love for me, but if Chuck actually loved me, then he wouldn't have tried to publicly humiliate me in front of the entire populace — anybody who matters, to be honest — of the Upper East Side."

"What did he do this time?" Dan asks in a way that's almost a bit tired.

She looks up at him, the slightest bit of alarm in her Bambi eyes, and then down once more towards the floor, "Uh, it doesn't really matter. Anyway, what happened with Serena and you? I heard she's back with Baizen, and that can't be good."

"Wait, I thought that you hated me and Serena together."

"Since when?"

"Since you always made it a point to somewhat sabotage our dates, point out to Serena that people from opposite sides of New York City can never end up together, and it is a big deal since I've had a crush on Serena since third grade," Dan mutters, rolling up his sleeves and looking down at the grass; he's had a crush on her for as long as he could remember, and for some stupid reason or another, he had thought that things would be different. She wasn't society's darling anymore, and Serena wasn't up on an unattainable pedestal anymore. They had gone on a few dates, now and then; he had seen her cry several times — ugly crying, for what it was worth — and they had had fights. He had yelled at her until she left, but Serena would always come back. It wasn't supposed to be that way.

"I've recently come to the conclusion that there are people worse in the world than Dan Humphrey for someone like Serena Van Der Woodsen."

"Wait, was that a compliment?"

"Of course not."

"Okay."

"Okay."

.

Blair always ends up leaving, but she always comes back.

The first time, she swears that she's fallen in love — that this guy's actually mature enough to understand her; he's better than Chuck because he doesn't run away from his problems, he's better than Nate because he doesn't love anybody else, and a perfect society darling too, as well. Dan seems the slightest bit shocked when he receives Save the Date invitation in the middle, announcing the wedding of Blair Cornelia Waldorf and Prince Louis Grimaldi of Monaco in less than a few months, and he thinks that he should feel happy for his friend, but Dan just feels a little empty inside.

But life isn't a perfect fairy-tale, especially not on the Upper East Side, and everything comes down with a crash — she calls him when he's in the middle of a family board game, and Dan immediately picks up only to hear her familiar voice breaking down in tears. "Hey, Blair, what's wrong? I was just going to stop by the wedding reception, but uh, do you want me to pick you up?"

"I've made a horrible mistake and I need you to help me," she murmurs, and there's the ending of the tone; Dan numbly remembers telling his dad that there was somewhere that he had to be (Rufus told me to have fun, and Jenny looked on in envy) and spending the entirety of his allowance to rent a limousine — the sign on the back read Just Married with ornate decorations and cheerful flowers but it was better than nothing — and he thinks that it's worth in when Blair mutters a thanks and orders him to drive to the J.F.K. Airport.

The second time, it's Chuck Bass, and it's as simple as that — she loves Chuck, and he says that he loves her, and it's as easy as anything else in the world, except it's really not. Dan gets into a habit of Blair stopping by his Brooklyn apartment now and then, joining what's left of the Humphrey family for dinner, still making insults about their fashion sense, but it's different now. It's a new beginning; they've both changed over the years.

It's not a happily ever after, not really; if life was a happily ever after, Blair would be with Chuck and they would be the power couple of the Upper East Side, with elaborate displays of affection for one another; Dan and Serena would have had a small wedding and traveled the world together, flying beneath gilded lights and ephemeral sights along the horizon. They're not each other's first choices, not by a long shot. They're just two lost people, trying to piece their broken bits into an incomplete whole, but after all, every happy ending is just a new beginning.

.

**this is for ali (saltzmans) for the gge2014, febii with the pairing of danblair; i'm really sorry that there wasn't a real romance, and mostly just friendship moments between them but i'm not really sure how to write them in a romantic sort of way. hope you like this, c: please leave a review? xx**


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